Perhilion
by zakhad
Summary: Deanna knows relationships don't have to be chains. It's easier to accept than to expect.


_Sleeping, turning in turn like planets_  
_rotating in their midnight meadow:_  
_a touch is enough to let us know_  
_we're not alone in the universe, even in sleep:_  
_the dream-ghosts of two worlds_  
_walking their ghost-towns, almost address each other._  
_I've wakened to your muttered words_  
_spoken light-or dark-years away_  
_as if my own voice had spoken._  
_But we have different voices, even in sleep,_  
_and our bodies, so alike, are yet so different_  
_and the past echoing through our bloodstreams_  
_is freighted with different language, different meanings-_  
_though in any chronicle of the world we share_  
_it could be written with new meaning_  
_we were two lovers of one gender,_  
_we were two women of one generation._

Adrienne Rich

Twenty-One Love Poems XII

* * *

She is a brilliant doctor, and possesses a finely-honed scalpel-sharp sense of what will get under the skin of the people around her, and each time she instigates the captain's ire, Deanna sees it.

Kate (as she has asked to be called) is not going to be a client. Nominally she is Deanna's supervisor, as the counseling department is subsumed by medical. But she sits across the table at their twice-weekly meetings (when everything is normal, no red alert) to discuss operational matters, the ebb and flow of crew medical concerns and coordinating care for those minority of patients currently obtaining therapy while on a regular regimen of medication, and feels not at all like a supervisor but a peer.

Deanna can, as usual, tell when Kate looks across her desk and notices - the emotions curl up like wisps of steam from their tea cups, tickling and then titillating. Empathy isn't what everyone labels it; being able to tell what someone else is feeling isn't just that. Sometimes, if her feelings are aligned with the other person's, it becomes synergy and cohesion, that draws her into an invisible and intimate dance. And the things that have attracted her to the lovers she has had are not what Humans expect. The synergy is more potent than the pretty face, the intensity more alluring. Because a galaxy full of people emoting and throwing all their passions into the air for Deanna to swim in is a smorgasbord, and she finds so randomly the very few who she can authentically connect with.

Three months into Kate's time on the _Enterprise_, she smiles in a new way across that desk in the Chief Medical Officer's private space in sickbay, in the middle of a wry comment about the captain. It registers - Kate pauses in her remark about Picard's coolness in the week's mission briefing, how he had almost glared at a humorous remark Will had made - and Kate meets her eyes, the corners of her mouth falling ever so slightly, her own blue eyes widening as the moment turns. Deanna senses the consideration, the surprise, the surge of recognition, the joy. It only warms her own smile more, and turns on Kate's version of the same.

Kate leans forward as she sets aside her tea, and her head tilts. Then she's sitting back in the chair and running fingers through her blond curls, looking up and around in that manner of a Human trying to decide, under pressure, what to do with something that's now completely distracting and a little alarming.

"I think we should consider that the captain simply has his own way of thinking about things," Deanna said softly, keeping the discourse overtly on track. "Briefings are for ship's business. It's a serious situation."

"But he isn't doing himself any favors, being so _unapproachable," _Kate asserts, without irony. Her own assertiveness bordering on aggression has its own effect on the people she works with. It's been like a fireworks show for Deanna since she came aboard, especially when the captain and the doctor were actually attempting to communicate.

Deanna glances down at the PADD in her hand. When she raises her eyes again, she finds Kate watching her; a faint pink washes across the doctor's cheeks.

Soon.

* * *

The predictable order of Deanna's days doesn't end at the shift change. She has a select few, including the first officer, she spends some of her leisure time with. And she meditates more than people realize.

On this particular evening, the third of the week (Starfleet has continued on a seven day cycle likely because it's Terran, and most are human, but she wonders sometimes if they had considered letting that convention go - the organization of time increments doesn't need such gradients, but she doesn't make the rules...), she goes swimming. The wrap she wears is not revealing at all and looks quite similar to one of the dresses she wears on duty. This avoids unwanted attention as she navigates the corridors to the gym.

As she enters a turbolift, she finds Will Riker is there. He smiles - he is between 'maybes' and once again exuding that subliminal interest in her, toying with memories and old feelings that he can't seem to forget. She herself has had those moments and sometimes has them again when he does this. Humans are constantly in a state of relationship, and while they think of them as binary states, in practice human relationships are more like competitions with themselves. Will I succeed, will I fail? Will I win her over this time? Will I find a better mate if I leave this one?

It's a ridiculous way to frame such an organic process. All the little choices made in relationship culminate in an atmosphere in which it will thrive or not.

She chooses to let him have his small talk, let him make what he will of her slight smile and knowing glances, and leaves the turbolift unchanged in her resolve to simply be friends, nothing more. Her relationships are hers to guide.

On deck sixteen she emerges and strolls for the main entrance of the gym, and finds the captain leaving it, in his sweaty gray workout clothes. Unlike Will, he sees her physical beauty and sets aside any consideration of it; he frames her in the professional and maintains that frame in all their interactions. Over time there have been moments of more relaxed congeniality, as they go about their official duties. She knows that will continue to be so, as the longer she works with a Human, the more they trust the relationship she builds with them, the easier they feel about allowing themselves to relax. That instinct of protecting the self against the Other, whether it's a Human they do not yet know or some new species they've never seen before, is there at all times. The successful Starfleet officers learn to recognize and use it. Picard knows how to suppress and selectively use his own emotional state as he needs to, and nothing she tells him will change it. He modifies his approach as he sees fit.

He is, at least for now, part colleague and part friend, in whatever combination suits the situation. And she likes him. She can sense that she might like him more, if he had any interest, but he does not. Working with him is rewarding. Unlike her previous commanding officer, he treats her as he would any line officer instead of deciding that as a counselor she should stay in her office unless he felt she was needed on a particular mission.

"Good evening, Counselor," he says, gracing it with the firm, semi-warm smile he uses with most officers off duty. She has seen signs that he can be congenial, but it waned again with Kate's arrival and her subsequent antagonistic approach with him.

She wonders what his reaction would be, if she told him that was Kate's instinct for how to get him to flirt back, driving the ongoing verbal jabs. Kate doesn't understand that he won't go there with a senior officer. That he would have gone there, with Beverly, but he chooses not to consistently, likely because of direct or indirect experience with how that can go horribly wrong. That he feels he is protecting his friends and himself with denial of any attraction, latent or otherwise.

"Good evening, Captain. Are we meeting tomorrow as scheduled?"

They pause, in the corridor outside the gym, as he processes the reminder; he'd forgotten, as he often did when there were other things going on.

"If we could reschedule to next week I would appreciate it," he says after a moment. "I think that I would be able to focus more after the current mission is complete."

"I'll check my schedule and send you my open appointments."

"Thank you, Counselor." For a few seconds, he really sees her as he looks at her, and she can sense the potential flickering - but his lips tighten and he is shuttering it all away again, as she is his personal counselor. It is a dance some of her clients do, and she avoids any verbalization of it unless it interferes in the work of therapy and becomes something to process.

He turns away for the turbolift. She goes into the gym, through the complex to the pool where she does laps for half an hour. Immersing herself grounds her. Especially now, during the hour most of the crew eats their meals; the pool is usually empty and she can focus on herself and the caress of the water. She goes back to her quarters before the next wave of crew arrives.

Her quarters are on the same deck as Kate's but in a different section. She is in front of her door when Kate comes to mind. They had been "making eyes" at each other in meetings now for three weeks. She knows she could go to Kate's door and look in her eyes, and probably be invited inside.

Deanna's body signals that would be a good thing, while her rational thoughts continue to argue for caution.

Deanna turns and enters her quarters. She will meditate herself to sleep.

* * *

It's obvious that Kate continues to feel as she has been, through the next weeks. It's sublimated most of the time beneath duty and the fear of rejection. The familiar frisson of that variety of anxiety is there each time Deanna sees the doctor.

With Deanna, when the other senior officers are elsewhere, Kate is smiling and _there_ without the bite in her comments. Real, and honest. Open in a way that the others are not.

Deanna finally one night on the way to her quarters from Ten Forward decides. It is not a moment of fanfare, divine revelation, flowers and fireworks. It is a shift of something inside that is satisfied by the burden of proof, that like so many emotions that Humans lob her way, this is not transitory. There is a consistency that satisfies her.

She continues past her door, her steps quickening, the full skirt billowing around her calves, as she smiles in anticipation. When she stops outside Kate's door she can tell the doctor is there. Reading, possibly, as she is quiescent and the murmuring of her sharp intellect at work is easy to sense.

Deanna touches the single key at the side of the door. When it opens Kate stiffens in surprise, eyes wide, one hand gripping the front of her blue robe.

"Is everything all right?"

"Yes," Deanna says, infusing the word with the warmth that has shimmered between them since the doctor came aboard. She looks down, letting her eyelids droop, holds out a hand, trying to signal her intent.

Kate takes a step and holds Deanna's hand. When she looks up again, Kate is blushing, her mouth slightly open in anticipation. The disbelief is waning, and the anticipation rising.

Launch.

* * *

There are two worlds, in Deanna's life. The work, where all interactions are prescribed, within Starfleet regulations and Captain Picard's expectations. The private, behind the doors of quarters.

The slow invasion marches along. First, into the living space. Dinner, drinks, talk of things other than patients and other officers.

The first time hands find their way into clothing.

The first time Deanna casually removes clothing, from her person and then from Kate's, as they gaze at each other in anticipation.

The first time they play a symphony made up of movement and touch, and moans, soft whispers of skin on skin.

The warmth of a body in the bed, at her back, in the morning. The mountains and hills of the standard issue bedclothes over hip and shoulder, the valley of the waist and the throat.

The taste of Human skin. The differences - Kate makes acerbic remarks about her age and the way the skin loses elasticity. Their experience with the USS _Lantree_ left a mark on Kate's self image; it took her a while to wander through the full realization of her mortality and her own beliefs about herself as she ages, and their first mapping expedition had led to flinching and a little too much self-awareness for her.

But Deanna has known and accepted bodies, these flesh containers for the vibrant, scintillating souls she can sense inside them. She reaches for the soul through the container, treating it with the love it's due, for making the person possible. An interface through which they see each other but for most only dimly. Deanna sees more than she lets any of them understand she sees, even Will, who thinks he knows her so intimately.

Kate is one of those whose manner is shielding her, shunting away the dangers of being seen for who she is. Deanna doesn't care about the brusqueness and the sarcasm. She knows something else is behind it. She knows that Humans adapt and change to circumstance.

She knows that she can be a circumstance, and has her reasons for choosing to do so that have nothing to do with anyone else.

* * *

Deanna knows that Kate has history with Kyle Riker, because she confesses it at breakfast before he arrives with such underlying guilt. When Deanna refuses to have sympathy or express concern, the doctor rebounds, easing back into what's between them with relief and hope. That says what Deanna doesn't want to ask; Kate won't be going anywhere or doing anything with Will's father.

She wants Deanna to talk to him, and maneuvers him into sickbay to introduce them. It says volumes about what was between Kyle and Kate. She can't simply ask him to talk to Deanna. She can't invite him in for dinner. Something about him makes Kate uncertain though she approaches him as so many Humans would approach a friend who'd been a lover, and Kate responded to her own insecurity with bravado.

Which was also Kyle Riker - bravado, in spades, without self awareness.

Kate's smile is somewhat forced, as she introduces them. "This is Deanna Troi, ship's counselor."

He knows something is up, from the constrained smile. "Kyle Riker."

"I thought you two should meet. Deanna's job is to keep us from deluding ourselves," Kate says, not sounding nervous to anyone who didn't know her, perhaps.

Kyle adopts the easygoing air of a confident man, points a finger casually. "Let me guess. Betazoid?"

"At your service." It only mattered to people who wanted to hide something, she had found. So she knows immediately what comes next. Because she is after all Betazoid, and Kate's anxiety peaks.

"I have some lab work to do. If you'll excuse me." Kate scurries away, leaving them together.

"Why do I get the feeling that this is a set-up?" he says in an attempt at camaraderie.

"Because you are intelligent, wise and quite correct." A little flattery could get her somewhere, she suspected.

"Well, I've never been set up better, that's for sure," he puts forth with the confidence of a man who knew how he could affect women. He was flattering, offering up his physical appreciation of Deanna on a platter for her to put on and wear.

"You're also very anxious about something. It's Will, isn't it? You're not as close to him as you'd like to be."

It has more of an impact than Kyle wanted to reveal. Perhaps the poker face was genetic. "Oh, I don't know. We both have pretty good taste in women, wouldn't you say?"

Had Will said something about his past relationship with her? She puts aside the flicker of irritation and keeps her counselor calm. He's trying to provoke just as she is.

"I'd like to help you if I can. If you'll let me."

"Fine. What is it you want from me? I came here to bury the hatchet with my son only to find out the ground was frozen solid." It's annoying him that Will hasn't just welcomed him with open arms. She is proud of Will for that.

"You don't seem to be the kind of man to give up so easily."

"I didn't say I was giving up. It would just be nice to get a little something from him."

It would have been 'nice,' she thinks, if Kyle hadn't abandoned his only child to fend for himself. But her counselor calm remains steady. She's weathered worse.

"What is it you want from him?" she asks coolly.

"I don't know. Acknowledgement, maybe or..."

"Respect is earned, not bestowed," she puts forth into the moment of feigned confusion. It annoys him.

"Respect? I don't need that from him." Kyle dismisses her suggestion out of hand. She suspects he will reject anything she suggests. Especially if it challenges his own perspective of his importance. She is briefly angry at Kate for bringing him to sickbay and leaving him there.

"Perhaps you want him to be proud of you. You carry great pride in his accomplishments." The calm observation irritates him, she senses at once.

"Absolutely. Look at him. First Officer of the Enterprise, just been offered his first command." Laying out the external signs of a successful career, that any father would be proud of, rather than admitting to himself he had been absent since Will was a teenager. She refuses to acknowledge his parenthood. He hadn't been a parent, really.

"Yet you covet his success."

"Please. He'd be lucky to have the career I've had." The immaturity of the man. He had no paternal instinct to prod to life. Just this competitive nonsense. Internally he chose to hold to his idea that he was exactly what he presented himself to be. The essence of narcissism. She defaults again to the counselor's impassivity.

"True, you're well respected in your field," she replies blandly.

"I may have something of a reputation for excellence."

"And false humility." She adds no emotion to the observation, though she would rather just leave him to his arrogant self importance.

Finally, he turns it back on her, fires back and giving away that he felt attacked. As she'd predicted. "My guess is that Will finds you pretty fascinating. Candor seems to be a trait he admires."

"Honesty is the trait he admires most. And you should honestly consider why you're so competitive with your own son."

Be honest, she says. And again a predictable result. Denial.

"Competitive? Maybe in the past. But I've come here to help Will prepare for his first task as captain."

"Are you sure he'll accept such a dangerous assignment?" She senses how Will's internal war wages itself even now, he is debating pros and cons, but wanting to stay with people he knew as a family he hadn't had as a child. Will probably wouldn't articulate it that way, but she understands it. She needs no words to confirm it. And, clearly he has not said a word of any of his feelings to Kyle.

"He'll accept it just because it is dangerous."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because I would. And we aren't so different, Will and I."

Kyle is wrong.

Kyle leaves, and Will doesn't.

Deanna goes to her quarters at the end of the shift, and disrobes. She's fine with Will's choice, because it's his choice to make and he feels good about it. The thought of his departure had distressed her, and the thought of leaving _her_ had distressed Will. She had been so close, _so close_, to telling him that the emotion he felt for her was misplaced, but there had been too much going on at the time. It wasn't entirely about her. But his own thought process believed it, and made it about her.

Part of her still loved him - she could be honest with herself in that. But she knew, had known since the moment she received the message from him that said they would not marry, he'd taken a promotion and left her behind… she knew she would not trust him again. Knew that as much as she'd felt he was part of her, he had not reciprocated in a way that had led to something other than the binary choice of marry or not. There were other choices he could have made. He hadn't seen them, or had seen and not chosen them. And so she would make other choices for herself now.

When Kate comes to her door and wavers outside, she goes to open it.

"Come in, Kate." She waits, while her nervous friend and lover goes to sit down stiffly. Sits with her on the sofa. Keeps her hands between her knees, faces her calmly - she's down to underwear, and not caring.

Kate is unable to speak for a few minutes. She shakes her head finally, and tries. "Kyle has changed," she says softly.

Deanna sits up straighter, recognizing the regret and shame behind the words. "I doubt that."

Not what Kate anticipated. She gapes, settles back, and her curiosity invites Deanna to go on.

"I don't doubt that he was incredibly charming, before. Invested in getting to know you. But the charm is facile. He wants to intrigue people into wanting to know him, to make them interested and then impress them with his confidence. He wants to control the narrative. He tried to control mine. When I failed to play along he left the conversation. You may remember child development and have an understanding of the needs of children? Did Kyle tell you he abandoned Will when he was thirteen?"

That was shocking. "No," Kate blurted, disapproving and disbelieving.

"He knows it was wrong. He's not going to apologize to Will for it. Which is why this visit was the first time Will has seen him since he left him in Alaska, and the last time he'll speak to him if at all possible. You saw a man who only existed for you, and perhaps when you talked to him after he came aboard you saw something different? Maybe he forgot how to be what he was before, because it's hard to remember the fraudulent faces he uses."

Kate starts to cry, but at the same time, she responds to Deanna's summary with a twisted sort of amusement. "I guess what I said in sickbay was correct for me as well. I was deluding myself. You're right… after the initial 'welcome aboard' and the reminiscing fondly, he did start to feel off to me. Disconnected. I think he wasn't mirroring the fondness that I had for him."

"You brought him in and introduced him to me - I wonder why?"

Kate looks at the floor. Deanna thinks she knows why Kate did it. Kate wants to make sense of the difference between Kyle now, and the version of him in her memory. She'd needed Deanna's objectivity. There was no mechanism to officially ask for help, as she'd had no reason for the ship's counselor to be ordered to assess Kyle, so she'd nudged them together to see what would happen. Deanna couldn't lie to prevent the tarnishing of Kate's happy memory. And she didn't feel much guilt in doing so - all her instincts informed by what she sensed of the man told her Kyle was dangerous. If Kate asked further questions, she would tell her this too. To inoculate her against the possible future urge to continue to have contact with him, for her safety, Deanna would tell her how Kyle made the hair stand up on the back of her neck.

"Kate. I feel a pull to the past sometimes, too. I'm sure you've noticed Will sometimes looks at me a little differently, from time to time." She had told Kate about the engagement before. Not about anything Will had said since Kate came aboard.

"I actually thought - just for a moment - I don't know why," she breathes, sitting up again, in great distress. She holds her hands out as if appealing to the stars outside the slanted viewports. "_Why_ was I going there? _You_ understand me. I don't even understand _us_. But _we_ feel more real to me now than he did. And I can't imagine now that I could go back!"

Deanna thinks about the great body of Human literature describing love as madness. She could cite what was known about attachment, bonding and emotional ties. She could view it all from a clinical perspective, and quantify.

"We haven't really talked about what we expect from each other," she says, touching Kate's knee through the uniform. "We haven't done much other than be together. If it needs to be discussed we can."

That stuns her again. Kate hasn't sounded insecure since their initial encounter, but she feels it again now. Then she deflates, accepts, and smiles.

"Can we discuss it tomorrow?"

Deanna takes her hand, and leans in for a kiss. It needed no other answer.

* * *

Deanna has always known that relationships have life spans.

She knew when Kate started to withdraw emotionally, and as she predicted, Kate confessed several days later that she had been thinking about a new position. Someone had given her a lead on a position at a research facility on Rigel. The continued friction with other members of the crew had worn on her. She'd befriended Worf, things had settled out with Data, but she still did not feel that she fit in. And she wasn't one to stay anywhere for very long, Deanna knew.

Deanna picks up her wine glass and sips. They had just finished dinner in her quarters. Kate liked the heady, fruity, smoky red wines. The Merlot was not unlike the woman who'd chosen it. "It sounds like it would be rewarding," she says, after Kate gives the description of the job.

"I don't know," Kate says. Her excitement, already tempered by some sort of anxiety, plummets.

"I think you do." Deanna's fond smile encourages Kate to own her choice, because she would be fine if Kate went.

There would be for a time correspondence. Fond, warm, concerned messages. There would be the slow dwindling of interest over time. This was a familiar pattern.

It was all right. Kate would still be a good friend.

Kate's smile, tentative and then more self-assured, agrees. She picks up her wine, sips, and closes her eyes to enjoy it - she did love a good Merlot.

"Are you interested in coming along? I know there is a counseling department at the Starfleet base," Kate tells her.

"No. I want to stay here," Deanna says simply without hesitation.

Kate is sad, and Deanna is sad with her. But still she smiles. "It's been lovely, you've been so… I don't think I can say that I've ever been loved so well. I hope you reconsider."

"I'll think about it," Deanna says, because it's true. She will. But she knows she will choose what she loves most. The _Enterprise_ has been her home, more than anywhere else she has been. And she knows she will miss it more than she will miss Kate.

"This is the last time, then?" Kate asks, though she still hopes.

"If you want it to be." Deanna is already feeling the loss, it's so bittersweet.

But she knows when it's time to let go.

Perhaps someday, Deanna will find the one person with whom she will stay in orbit, the one with whom homeostasis can be achieved and stability established.

Kate puts down the empty wine glass, and they stand together, to move into the bedroom to say a fond farewell.


End file.
